Tobias Ragg-Lovett
by HeatherLovett
Summary: Tobias escapes from the basement, only scarred but mentally from the death of his 'mother' Nellie Lovett. A murderer in his own mind, he begins to lose sight of himself. He thinks love would escape even the innocent child he believes he used to be. But can his love he only ever felt for Mrs Lovett be replaced?
1. A new life

Ravinia Eve

I hug my little 4 year old brother and step out into the cold air, walking along the cobblestone of the sidewalk on the cool street. It's winter in London, a dreadful night for anyone, really. My brother, Todd, sits on the windowsill watching me. He'll probably be there until I'm well on my way. I just have to pick up some bread for my father, but see it really hasn't been very safe here lately. I suppose 1842 has been a bad year for everyone, what with all the murders.

I walk passed the bakery and smell a foul stench of cooking meat pies. I always hated them when my mother made them , so I never tried the locals. A boy runs out onto the street, coughing and falls to his knees next to me. He's only my age, about 14. I recognize him as the salesboy for Pirelli's elixir. Bu he had long blonde hair then. I like him much better with his hair now, I guess. But why is he coughing so much? Why was he in Mrs Lovett's?

"Oh my! Are you okay?" I bend down and help him of his hands and we're both kneeling, looking into each others eyes. He drops something to his side and pushes it into a drain before I can see what it is.

"Yes. Er. Yes, ma'am. I'm fine." He tucks his hands in his coat pockets.

"Do you live there? Where's Mrs Lovett? What's that awful stench?" I ask as we stand. I adjust my scarf.

"I found my master pushing my mother- my friend, master… into an oven. Then he dropped dead from other injuries." The boy whispers. As if there's anyone else on the street. But a knot forms in my stomach at the thought.

"You saw that?" I ask. He nods. I take him in a hug and he smells of smoke and filth. He shakes in my embrace. "Do you have a place to stay?"

"I reckon they'll send me to the workhouse again and maybe I'll get another 'home'" He gives a slight smile. "I'm disposable to them though, may be dead by the end of the month if I'm lucky. Maybe the heavens got a plan for me though. I thought they did before." He stares down at the drain where he tossed that object earlier.

"The workhouse?"

"I'm an orphan. I worked for Pirelli before he died… mysteriously. But Mrs Lovett took me in, and I thought she was my gift from god. I promised I'd protect her. I promised nothing would harm her. I promi"

I cut him off before the tears already welling in his eyes flow down his pale cheeks. "It's fine. I promise you now. I'll keep you safe."

"You will? What's your name?"

"Ravinia," I smile to him, holding out my hand. He replies with a glum smile and a shake of my hand.

"Tobias."


	2. Father dearest

**Tobias POV**

I follow the girl, Ravinia, into her home, warm and happy. I don't remember ever having a home like this, I was never lucky enough. I was a slave, which was always my path in life, until now. But before I let the nice feeling of the burning fire under the stovetop with a pot of amazing smelling soup bubbling, I think of the events that transpired earlier this evening.

Guilt fills my stomach and suddenly the fire is less appealing as the vision of Mrs Lovett being thrown into the fire and me slinking out of the sewer appears in my head. I think of the sickening feeling of killing Mr Todd with his own knife. I just feel terrified that someone may trace it back to me. I'll have to change my name. I like my name. But I liked Mrs Lovett better.

Ravinia is so pretty, even prettier than Mrs Lovett was, if that's even possible. I think she may even be more beautiful than the girl in Mr Todd's photos. The girl with the long yellow hair.

Ravinia introduces me to her charming little brother, Todd. He looks nothing at all like Mr Todd but the name makes anger bubble in my insides.

"It's nice to meet you Todd." I say, holding out my hand to the boy, who takes it and gives it a light shake.

"I do believe I seen you before! Selling some elixir." He smiles up at me. "Does it actually work?"

"Of course not! It's nothing but an arrant fraud concocted from piss and ink." I laugh, but remember that Mr Todd said those very words to me, which dissipates my smile.

"Why would you sell such a thing to the innocent people of London?" Todd asks me. Ravinia shoots him a look, but I kneel to his level and hold out my knuckles, pulling up my sleeves to the wrists, only revealing half of the scars I received on a daily basis from Pirelli.

"These are why." His eyes widen and he nods. "Also, not everyone in London is innocent…"

"Enough questions for Tobias, Todd." Ravinia stops the boy from continuing. She takes my hand and leads me down the hall. She opens a door to a bedroom and sits on the bed, and pats the mattress next to her. I sit and watch her.

"Tobias.."

"Toby." I smile. Most people in my life have called me Toby.

"Oh, Toby. Why did this all happen to you? Your masters."

"Oh." I begin. I tell her the story, the long version. I realize I must be boring her but I keep speaking, looking away from her. I don't want to see her expression. "I ate those filthy things! Can you believe? I snuck into the sewer, of course vomiting the rancid pies, and they came looking for me. I bet to kill me. I watched them through the grates, and I figured it all out. Mr Todd was married, and had a daughter. That was the girl in his picture. But the judge, he sent him away and took his wife. Then his wife killed herself, and he took the daughter and held her captive I s'pose. I guess Mr Todd's wife didn't die. She went crazy. That made Mr Todd mad and he… he… Mrs Lovett was thrown into an oven. Mrs Lovett was crazy in love with Mr Todd and I suspected! I knew! He was a filthy murderer and I never saved her."

"So…The pies…were his victims?" Ravinia looks sick.

I nod.

"If Mrs Lovett was baking them, don't you think she knew about Mr Todd?" Ravinia asks. Her warm hand slides over mine.

"I guess so.." I say. I think about it for a few moments, when I realize she was just as sick and twisted as he was. She lied to me.

But that doesn't stop the longing I still have for her to be back, acting as my mother, holding me tight. I wish she was alive and well, and that Mr Todd was normal.

I wish I was never an orphan.

Ravinia POV

I approach my father's bedroom slowly, and open the door. He lies in is large bed, staring up at the ceiling. My father was never a nice man. He never took fondly to me - or Todd for that matter, but especially me. I don't mind though, I just miss my mother.

"Father…" I say as I step into the room. He turns to me, sadness flashing on his face before it's replaced with anger.

"What are you doing here? Have you fed Todd?" He growls.

"Yes father, but there's something I desperately need to ask of you." I whisper. He's sick, feeble even, but he still scares me. Perhaps because of my haunting childhood with him beating us and my mother. I hated him for that. Now I feel pity for the man he must have been for my mother to marry him, only to lay his hands on his own children. "You see, there was an orphan, Tobias, Tobias …" I glance to the hallway, where Toby mouths _Ragg _to me. "Tobias Ragg. And he was in a tragic accident, with nowhere to stay but the workhouse. So I invited him here. Todd loves him too, Father."

"You did _no such thing._" My Father sits up In bed, though it must pain him severely.

"I did, Father." I say, with new found strength now that Toby is only a few feet away.

"Why would you invite a filthy scoundrel into our home!?" My Father exclaims.

"He's not filthy! He lived over with the baker, and he was fed and clothed but she's suffered a death and he is now without a guardian!" I reply.

"Well…"

"Please, Father, can he stay?" I beg and fall to my knees at his bedside. He gives it a moment of thought before saying:

"Okay, Ravinia. But he must have his own cot. And he mustn't know where we keep the valuables." I almost roll my eyes but nod quickly and flee the room.

Toby waits for me in the hallway and I close the door and fall into his arms, excited that he can stay, though I am cautious of him. Who knows- he could have murdered his masters. I just don't know. So that night, I lock my bedroom door, along with Todd's.

But not once does my doorknob tremble throughout the night.


	3. Losing control

"Police line the street, Toby!" Todd comes dashing in the door of our home. I suppose I shouldn't call it my home, it's only been a few days I've been living here. But Ravinia's father doesn't leave his room much so I feel welcome here. Much more than in Signor Pirelli's cart. That was torturous.

"Fleet street?" I jump from my chair and run to the window to draw the curtains and look out onto the foggy street. The police could come looking for me. Nervousness builds in my gut as I think of me slicing Mr T's neck. What if they came for me and threw me in the madhouse? Or hanged me in the streets?

"Yes, yes. By Mrs Lovett's pie shop!" Todd follows me to the window as he rips his scarf off his neck and removes his coat. I watch the hustle and bustle of the quiet street, Bush street. I'm glad now that I'm not near to the police investigation.

3 days later

I am raised from a nightmare about Mrs Lovett burning in the oven as I try to unlock the door but Sweeney pulls me back and is about to slice my neck when I hear Ravinia's voice.

"Toby…Toby… come back…" I reach out and her face is there waiting when I open my eyes. I touch her pale face slowly, bringing my fingers across her soft cheek. "You were screaming…" That's when I notice the shaking to her voice and the tears streaming down her face. I sit up and hug her. She slows her breathing and sighs.

"It's fine, just a dream. I swear." I hush her. "Not to worry, ma'am."

"But Toby, I'm just scared…"

"Scared?" I ask, pulling back and looking into her bright blue eyes. Although Mrs Lovett's eyes were dark and gloomy, Ravinia's project light and forgiveness. Life and rebirth. In both I can find a love so deep that I just want to fall into them and watch them forever.

"I'm scared… of you. What if you… lost control?" Ravinia asks. She has grown unusually quiet.

"And… did something?" I stutter.

"Yes." Ravinia is crying again. I realize that we are sitting in the dark. It's my week of being here. And as we sit in the bed, I think of my life. Raised from abandonment and loss, I was always compliant to Signor Pirelli- he was the closest I had to a father from age five up. But then I found love and sincerity- or so I thought. To be betrayed in such a terrifying way, and lose more than I ever imagined, I come to a conclusion.

"You're all I 'ave, Ravinia. How could I lose you?" I tuck a piece of black hair behind her ear. She's beautiful. "And at my own hands?"

"I suppose so… But the trauma"

I cut her off and kiss her. I've never kissed anyone since I was at the workhouse and another boy dared me to kiss a girl who was pretty. She got angry and did all but spit in my face, but I apologized right away and told her I never meant it. I wish I could remember her name now.

"Toby." Ravinia pulls away after a moment. She exhales sharply, a smile playing on her lips.

5 years later.

"Happy birthday!" I embrace my best friend, Todd, in a hug. He's twelve today. I remember when I was twelve, working for Pirelli. It was the only life I knew. But now I know love, and recovery. Now I am finally happy. My fiancé, Ravinia, enters the room, taking her brother from me and tackling him with a hug. Sometimes she's so unladylike it's funny.

"Thank you! Thank you! Get off me!" Todd giggles as Ravinia tickles him. He's a feeble young lad, although you'd never know it from his laugh, he has the most wonderful laugh, though he is sick as his father was so many years ago, but now his father has grown even more dead inside. I haven't spoken but a few words to him, and he never really leaves his room. I feel a sad aura lurks around him.

"We baked you a cake last night!" Ravinia smiles to her brother, and lifts him from the floor and to a chair. More like Ravinia baked it. I just pulled it from the oven, I'm still afraid of her walking reaching into it. I keep thinking she'll fall in and burn right up, just like Mrs Lovett did. Although Mrs Lovett didn't exactly fall.

I still have flashbacks that will stop me dead in my tracks and I need Ravinia to tug on my arm a bit. I've become Toby Eve, no longer Toby Ragg, a name given to me by default in the workhouse because I got the first name they pulled out of a hat I guess.

"Toby? Do you want a piece of cake love?" Ravinia asks me.

"No, some gin please, ma'am." I raise a glass from the table and she pours some in.

"Me too?" Todd holds up his own glass. Ravinia rolls her eyes and is about to put the gin away when Todd speaks up. "For my birthday?"

Ravinia looks to me almost for permission and I give her a smile. I was drinking gin when I was only four years old to put me to sleep, to cure headaches, to make us forget our fears and worries. Now, Todd only wants but a pinch of the stuff. Ravinia pours it into his glass, a lot less than Todd probably expected but he's happy for any. Ravinia is severely protective of her brother. I learned about her love for her mother, whom Todd can hardly remember. She died just a few years after Todd's birth. But Ravinia loved her so much, possibly more than Todd, though she'd never let you know.

"So do you have any plans for the night?" I ask Todd. He shakes his head.

"A few of my mates wanted me to travel down to check on old Sweeney Todd's haunted barber shop- but I didn't want to. What if it really is haunted?" Todd sighs. "I think I'll go to Mrs Mooney's and get a meat pie."

"You know what I always say about Mrs Mooneys…" I trail off.

"That she bakes pussycats into her pies, I know. But it doesn't get worse than that!" He laughs.

"I'd just stay away from pie shops in general, Todd." I take one last burning gulp of gin and place my glass on the wooden table with a thump. "For your own good- you don't know what could be happening there."

Ravinia shoots me a look but doesn't say anything.

I walk along the street, Ravinia in tow. The night is cool and the breeze lingering.

"Stroll down Fleet street? I have to pick up some more gin- Todd is trying to drink me out of house and home, I swear!" Ravinia jokes, but I can only remember Mrs Lovett murmuring that to Mr Todd right before I passed out on their floor.

So we saunter down the avenue, and I can't help but to look over to the old bakery with a faded sign.

_Mrs Lovett's meat pies_

_Try it- you'll love it!_

I can remember singing about the amazing pies at the grand opening. The bakery has been condemned to the public for years. You can't get in, kids have tried. Not that I would ever want to. Although Ravinia does admire how close a shave I can give to some friends of hers. I would have been a barber maybe, had I never found out the truth about Mr Todd. Now the thought scares me. Ravinia would love to be a baker, but knowing the trauma I suffered at the bake house, promises she'd never become one. She is living off of inheritance though, and soon we'll both need to do something.

"I was thinking, maybe I should move out of my father's old apartment soon, we could find a place of our own- by the sea perhaps?" The words from Ravinia make my skin crawl and I go stiff. Mrs Lovett always wanted to live by the seaside.

"I suppose."

"We could have a beautiful home, I swear. I'd make it look real nice with some flowers, pretty daisies." Ravinia smiles at me. "Or giddy flowers, I like those. What do you think, Toby?" I just shrug my shoulders. Some boy pushes passed me and is yelling about the ghost of Sweeney Todd, back to haunt us all. I stop on the road. Nobody was to know about the crime, it was kept a painful secret from the public, one I would never repeat to anyone, besides that fateful day to Ravinia.

"Toby?" Ravinia looks back with those beautiful blue eyes. "Are you okay? I'll wait for you."

"I…" I suddenly feel a great urge of anger. I look back at the bake house and Ravinia pulls me forward.

"There's no need to fret, Toby. Things are wonderful. You have me now, and Todd. You're fine." Ravinia is worried now, and I sense urgency in her tone. As I turn back to her, I fake a smile.

"Of course, my love." I say and plant a kiss to her lips as we continue down the dark street, but I look back to the bakery once more, almost feeling the presence of Mrs Eleanor Lovett.

_Thank you to Hellie Lovett for helping me with uploading this chapter, because I have no idea how this website operates. More to follow! 3_


	4. A seaside wedding, truly divine

2 years later

I adjust my collar, Harry flicking pieces of my hair up. Harry is my best friend, one of the few friends I have. That's why he's here- although I'd rather Todd. But he's off dealing with his father. I hear the crashing of waves from the window. A seaside wedding, like Mrs Lovett and Ravinia both wanted for themselves. I still live to serve, even now, I suppose.

"You look charming," Harry winks at me. "God, do I wish I was in Ravinia's shoes."

"Shut your mouth." I joke back. "We're almost late." I look back. "And you say that as if your large feet would fit in her delicate little shoes?" I laugh.

"There you are!" Todd wobbles up. He's got a cane now, a sad little thing. But he works through every day with a smile, and I'm proud of my little buddy. "My father couldn't gather himself out of bed!" Todd shakes his head, rolling his eyes.

"What?" My jaw drops. "He's going to miss it!" Todd shrugs.

"We don't have time, we've got to get up there." Harry ushers the three of us up. I'm standing at the end of the aisle when I see the few guests rise. Music begins to play, but the only thing I notice is the beautiful pale lady at the end of the aisle. She is wearing a cream coloured dress that almost matches her porcelain skin. She smiles up at me, holding orange daisies as she practically runs up to me. I catch her as she almost falls in her heels.

"I do," I say later, followed by her own 'I do'. I kiss her soft lips and Todd makes a small disgusted sound. I suppose I didn't feel that way at 14 because all I wanted was for Mr Todd to kiss Mrs Lovett so she could stop longing for him.

Ravinia pulls away just to kiss me again and I figure I could stay this way forever.


	5. Todd

The following week, I rise from my bed to hear a wail from the kitchen, there is no Ravinia by my side so I rush out to the next room. She is sitting on the floor with a paper in her hands.

"Toby?" She looks up at me from her spot on the floorboards. I suddenly see her vibrant blue eyes, stained by tears.

"Ravinia…" I lower myself to the floor and reach out a hand to her. She sits in a crumbling remnant of the woman I saw last week at our wedding, her smile seemingly gone forever.

"It's Todd."

"What about him?" I scoot over to her and hold her close as her sobs shake her fragile body.

"He's…" Ravinia crumples the letter and throws it across the room with an angry cry. She puts her head in her hands and cries until the sun rises. And I come to the realization.

"Todd has died." She chokes out.

The days following that terrible letter are horrific. I am shunned from my wife for days as her father pretends to have a newfound love for her. I sit alone with my feelings. I can't stand this. I've already lost my mother, and now my best friend? Harry sends his condolences, but it means little to me. Todd was my only true friend besides Ravinia. To think of how happy I was just last week.

His funeral is the saddest event I've witnessed, young children crying over how Todd died so young. I keep my head bowed the entire ceremony. At the end, I am called up by the priest to say a few words.

"It is on this saddening occasion, that I have to stand up here and pretend I'm happy that my brother in law, my best friend… is out of his pain. But is it so selfish to wish to say goodbye? To wish to hold him one last time in my arms? Perhaps that's unchristian of me. But I would give anything just to see him smile again. To hear his laugh. He's gone now. But I suppose he'll never really be gone."

With that I step back to the seat where a crying Ravinia sits. She holds my hand when I sit back down, but I know that after today, nothing will ever be the same for us.

_sorry this is so short- the next one will be longer and Toby will have much more character! :)_


	6. The first kiss in months

1 month later

"Toby." Ravinia snaps me out of another flashback. They hadn't been that dominant of me around the time of our wedding, but since Todd… "You left me again. I was right in the middle of talking to you!" She rolls her eyes. She's not back to normal. But she's getting there I suppose. She cries every day over the loss of her brother, and we've moved back to the main part of London, still near to where I grew up with her. She didn't want to stay in our beautiful new home because of the memory of that horrid letter.

"Sorry, love." I shrug, slumping back in my seat as I throw back my head and take a swig of the gin in the glass between my fingers and my thumb. I've been drinking every few days, something to ease the pain I guess.

"I've been thinking… We're not going to cruise along on my father's money forever. Soon it will run out- and then what will happen? I think… I think we should do it." Ravinia's eyes fleet from me, to the table, and back to me nervously.

"Do what?" I lean my elbows against our warm kitchen table. I hate how it creaks.

"Reopen Mr Todd's barber shop. How we said we would, about a year ago."

The thought sickens me, but I realize she would never ask this if she didn't really think it was necessary.

"I will." I give her a small smile though I am not happy with the idea and she leans across the table and kisses me. I hold her hand over the table and an exciting feeling builds within me. I stand and she holds me close as I take her hand and lead her into our bedroom. It's a dark room with very little natural or artificial light, but it's home. Ravinia continues to kiss me, but I pull away for a moment. "Are you sure?"

She looks over to the tiny dusty window. Then back at me. She nods. I take her in my arms and collapse on the creaky bed and kiss her, smelling her French perfume- a wedding gift from a friend. It smells like frosting. As my wife and I kiss that day, I recall the times in which we were sad, and know that to continue our happiness, we must move on.

It takes weeks to ready our small building, but I have a great barber shops set up, It's named after Ravinia.

_A New Eve Barber Shop_

It's called.

Ravinia loves it, she swears she'll find something to do with the downstairs soon, but for now, we'll focus on my shop. I have many customers, but one day as I am giving a haircut to a man with blonde curly hair, Ravinia comes bursting through the door, clutching her stomach.

"Toby we're having a child!"


End file.
